“Bumblebees are a big interest of mine,” said Warriner, who moved to Texas two-and-a-half years ago. That's certainly an understatement considering his hour-long presentation, as well as the website and Facebook page he's created, both devoted to bumblebees in Texas.

On www.texasbumblebees.com, he explains: “While most everyone has heard at least something in the news about declining bees, most press coverage has been directed toward the plight of the (non-native) European honeybee. Very little attention is directed towards native bees, like bumblebees,” explained Warriner, who added that there are nine species of bumblebees in Texas.

Warriner showed the audience the differences in the nine species which occur in the head, thorax, and abdomen, which is composed of six segments in females and seven segments in males. There is also a difference in the number of segments of the antenna—12 for females and 13 for males. And, female bumblebees are the only ones with stingers.

“Dense hairs, in varying combinations of black and yellow, cover most of their body. When attempting to identify a bumblebee, the features you will want to concentrate on most will be the pattern of black and yellow on the thorax and abdomen,” he said.

“Bumblebees have gone virtually unstudied in most states in this country, despite their critical roles in agriculture and natural ecosystems,” Warriner said. “There is a real need to evaluate bumblebees in the United States to assess how their populations are faring and if conservation actions are needed.”

That's why each spring and summer Warriner is outside looking for bumblebees to photograph and capture, in order to determine the quantity of each species found in Texas. He keeps samples in his freezer at home; his samples are sent to Texas A&M University's Insect Collection for record-keeping.

“We're trying to look at the distribution to see if the species are still occurring where they have previously been seen, basically to revisit historical occurrences to see if they're persisting,” he added.

“There's just very little that's been recorded in Texas,” he said, as the most recent study of native Texas bees is almost 100 years old.

Entomologist Henry James Franklin, in his 1913 paper The Bombidae of the New World (Part I), provides one of the earliest accounts of bumblebees in Texas. “Franklin listed seven species for the state,” Warriner said. “Since Franklin's 1913 publication, there has been little else published regarding Texas bumblebees.”

Warriner hopes to change that.

Last year, he compiled data from several museum collections to map the historic distribution of the bee species in Texas. The results of that effort will published in an upcoming issue of the journal, The Southwestern Naturalist.

As a result of Warriner's work, experts now recognize nine species in Texas.

But, the real buzz is whether or not Texans should be worried if there is a decline in the number of bees buzzing around flowers and plants.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Warriner said. That's why it's important to start recording bee populations, and thanks to Warriner's website, average citizens can help in the effort.

“We can begin to do this in Texas by simply recording where species are today and if they still occur in the same places they did years ago. Helping with this process can be as simple as casually snapping images of bumblebees on flowers, recording the date and location, and posting them to the Texas Bumblebees Facebook page or as complex as conducting your own bumblebee survey,” he says.

For more information or to become a “bumble watcher”, contact Warriner at michael.warriner@tpwd.state.tx.us.